Page 17 of Wolf Mate

My stomach roiled, and everything within me shouted torun. But with the way my blood hummed, I didn’t have a choice. My legs propelled me forward. I didn’t have a weapon, but I couldn’t abandon someone who needed help.

I snatched my phone and shot Raffe a text: Something weird is going on in the woods.I’m going to check it out.

There. I’d done what I’d promised—texted him. At least I wasn’t heading into danger without making someone else aware.

Stepping between two firs, I froze. I blinked, trying to understand what the fuck I was seeing. A woman leaned with her head tilted back against a tree and a man’s head at her neck. But he wasn’t giving her loving kisses; the sounds he was making reminded me of the noises newborn babies made when they ate.

Crimson dripped down her neck, and I gasped. I had to be seeing things because the image before me couldn’t be real. The guy was drinking this woman’s blood, and her eyes bulged in terror.

His eyes locked on mine. He winked as he lazily retracted his teeth and licked a trickle of blood from her neck. I could feel pleasure and power wafting from him, but the girl was scared and confused.

This had to be a horrible dream. My entire time at EEU had been one strange thing after another, butthiswas the icing on the cake.

The man appeared to be near my age, so early to midtwenties, with shaggy, dark-blond hair hanging in his eyes. He might have looked like a nice guy who was into sports if he hadn’t had blood dripping down his mouth.

I wanted to run, but I suspected he would chase after me. Worse, if he didn’t, he’d go back to drinking this woman’s blood.

His victim opened her mouth as if she were going to scream, but no sound came out.

He chuckled and grabbed her head, staring into her eyes. He said, “I told you that you weren’t allowed to scream, and now you’ll wait here until I take care of our little interruption.”

Her bottom lip quivered, and her auburn hair fell into her face, her fear hitching up a notch.

Shit, I had to get out of here but in a way he couldn’t come back to her. I spun and ran back the way I’d come from.

He laughed darkly. “I love it when they act like prey.”

The trees flew past me, and my heart pounded. The weight of my limbs receded as my flight response replaced my shock. My hearing seemed to enhance as I ran past trees, running faster than I ever had before. My blood hummed, and I welcomed it.

A shiver ran down my spine a moment before something wrapped around my waist. I lunged forward, trying to break free, only to be tossed into the closest tree. My back slammed into the trunk, knocking the breath out of me.

In a blur, the guy appeared in front of me. His light-brown eyes were ringed with crimson and twinkling with excitement as he lowered his face to mine. His breath smelled of copper.

Acid burned my throat as I averted my gaze to the tree behind him. I didn’t want to stare into his freaky-ass eyes.

“You’re going to wish you hadn’t come searching,” he cooed as he restrained my head like the girl he’d left behind. His annoyance and pleasure slammed into me, and my lungs stopped working. But that compared to nothing when he sniffed me and moaned, “You smell incredible.”

The humming spilled out of me into the tree behind us, and when he maneuvered for his head to block my view, a sharp, piercing hum sprang up around us. The sound was loud, and the guy stumbled back, covering his ears with his hands.

I didn’t know what was going on, but the sound echoed the vibration I felt within my body.

When the guy hunched over and groaned, I pushed off the tree and ran toward the university. The humming continued to pierce the air as I took off. But after a few steps, I got light-headed, and I tripped and dropped to my hands and knees.

A piece of bark or branch cut into one knee, causing it to sting, but I gritted my teeth and got my feet back underneath me. A scrape I could heal from—a person drinking my blood had no such guarantee.

My chest constricted, and I wheezed. Fatigue hit me, weighing my body down, which was so much worse than fear. Fear you could run through, but not exhaustion.

The humming continued, but I wasn’t sure how long it would last. My blood pulsed as if it might also give out, and I had to move until I couldn’t anymore. I’d been a quarter mile into the woods, so I should be close to campus.

My body gave out, and I crumpled onto the ground. The humming in my veins slowed, and so did the noise that had taken the guy down.

This was it. I couldn’t help myself or the girl. We’d both die, and I could only wonder what the news around campus would be.

“You bitch,” the guy snarled, and hands gripped my right shoulder and flipped me onto my back.

The guy straddled me, his fangs extending over his bottom lip. The faint humming was still there, but with the way his nostrils flared, it seemed to piss him off more than hurt him.

“You’re going to pay for that.” He opened his mouth and lowered his head to my neck.

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